DILLINGHAM, Alaska, Sept 2 (Reuters) - President Barack
Obama headed to remote fly-in native villages of Alaska on
Wednesday on a trek the White House hopes will bring attention
to how climate change is affecting Americans.

Obama will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit
a community north of the Arctic Circle when he flies into
Kotzebue, an Arctic town of about 3,000 that is battling coastal
erosion caused by rising seas.

Before going to Kotzebue, Obama went to Dillingham, home to
one of the world's largest sockeye salmon fisheries, where
residents are fighting the Pebble Mine copper and gold project
that has been proposed by Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd
.

Ignoring a light drizzle, he walked down the banks of the
Nushagak River where women who fish for a living had anchored
fishing nets to shore to catch a silver salmon.

"I've got to get some gloves so I can handle my fish," Obama
said. As he lifted it, the fish relieved itself on his shoes.
"Uh-oh. What happened there?" he asked.

Obama spoke with Alannah Hurley of the United Tribes of
Bristol Bay, who is part of a coalition fighting the mine.

Hurley told reporters before his arrival, "We have never
seen a mine the size of the Pebble project."
Continued...